Police in Chengde City, north China's Hebei Province, claim Li Haitao, chief of the relics safekeeping section of Chengde City's Waibamiao cultural relics management department, stole 158 cultural relics items under his control.

Waibamiao is part of the imperial summer resort of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

Seventy of the items were allegedly found in Li's home, while some 40 pieces, though already sold, could be retrieved, but the whereabouts of the rest unknown.

Initial investigations indicated several of the 158 relics had been identified as first grade, the country's highest level, and the rest were second or third grade.

Li had worked at his post since 1990 and police allege he had been stealing artifacts for about 12 consecutive years.

Suspicions were raised in October 2002 when two royal cultural relics labeled "Forbidden City" were found in an auction in Hong Kong by a visiting expert from the Chinese mainland.

In the 1950s and 1960s, some cultural relics had been sent from Beijing's Palace Museum to local museums and not returned.

The expert reported his findings to the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, which carried out a follow-up investigation and spotted Chengde as the source.

Police claim Li had committed the crime clumsily, simply by replacing the stolen items with fakes made beforehand.

Finding that no one had noticed the situation in his museum, Li then directly took the cultural relics home without bothering to make copies. All he did was alter the registration records of the relics in the museum, police allege.

Holding keys for the three consecutive gates of the repository of the museum, Li had easy access to the items.

Though Waibamiao section had changed its head five times, none of them had ever checked the number of the relics, a serious breach of their duties.

Li allegedly tried to flee abroad with a false passport and the money he collected from his crimes, according to the police.

Investigations into the case are still underway.

(Xinhua News Agency June 18, 2003)